I Voted...

...in person, at my local polling place, on Election Day. As the old advertising jingle used to say; "The Only Way to Fly!" Here's an excerpt from Hank Steuver's defense of this tradition from today's Washington Post:

For now, the "I Voted" sticker remains gloriously the same. Oh, some jurisdictions may dress it up -- Prince William's sticker is much jazzier than the District's simple white circle with the red "X" in the box -- but the message is clearer than ever: I kick it old school. I waited in line with everyone else on the appointed day, because "everyone" is the whole idea. The "I Voted" sticker has been around a long time, at least five election cycles. (A Florida manufacturer claims to have been making "the original" version since 1986, but it probably goes back further.)

The District of Columbia Voter's Guide showed up several days ago in our mail, and on the front cover was a cartoon of a ballot and a pencil holding hands and jumping happily. There was something rudimentary and childlike, almost Hello Kitty about them. It made it feel like social studies class. It's dorky cool, more cool than watching Kirsten Dunst vote early. "You complete us," read the cute words beneath the Pencil and the Ballot, in a retro '70s-style italic. What followed was 57 sober pages of instructions, rules, sample ballots, statements from candidates and long lists of potential advisory neighborhood commissioners.

There's so much to love about the standing part today, amid all the drab beige, taking in the smell of someone else's coffee, rereading the entire newspaper, stuck in the line of voters that doesn't seem to move but, in fact, does. Then comes the sticker.

What a wonderful and boring thing, voting together.